Formula 1 boss Bernie Ecclestone has given Asian marketing magazine Campaign Asia-Pacific a very open, and fairly troubling, interview. Front and center: his views on women and struggling F1 teams. The entire interview is here, but we’ve extracted some of Bernie’s choicest bits, including his rather outlandish claim that Marussia should revitalize its brand by looking at Oscar Pistorius, the Paralympian and Olympian runner convicted of manslaughter, as an example. Yes, it’s truly bizarre.

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Ecclestone’s views of women are particularly problematic. Asked, “What makes Formula 1 special?”, he blames a decline in rabid fandom on F1 enthusiasts inclination to complain. “Women in particular like to criticize,” he tells his interviewer, without elaborating.

As the interview wound on, Ecclestone continued to lay blame at the feet of various groups: fickle fans, young people without money, and teams facing financial crisis. Of the latter, when asked about the troubles of Marussia and Caterham, Ecclestone is dismissive. “Nobody will miss the two teams because they’re not front-running teams; they’ve only got a name that people would know because of the problem they’re in.” The problem, of course, is the spiraling cost of running the turbo V-6 engines. Who’s to blame for that? Not F1 as an organization. According to Ecclestone, “It’s like a poker game; if you haven’t got enough money because there are big dealers in there, don’t play the game.”

That raises another question: is Formula 1 too expensive on the whole? Ecclestone’s views on the staggering expense involved are simple: If they can’t spend enough to compete, spend less and “do the best they can with that.” And then there’s the most troubling quip: “It’s the same for everything in life, isn’t it, really? It’s the same problem with ladies and credit cards.”

Asked if there is any value to expanding F1’s reach to a younger audience, Ecclestone’s reaction is blunt. “Most of these kids haven’t got any money. I’d rather get to the 70-year-old guy who’s got plenty of cash. So, there’s no point trying to reach these kids because they won’t buy any of the products here and if marketers are aiming at this audience, then maybe they should advertise with Disney.”

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Unlike women and poor young folks, there’s a group Bernie does seem to empathize with: Paralympians convicted of manslaughter. How’s that? When asked about the plight of struggling teams, he puts the onus on them: “If you want to get recognized, you’ve got to do something.” As an example, he points to “[t]his poor guy in South Africa, for instance, has got more interest because of what happened with him than when he was winning gold medals. He won medals and afterwards nobody thought about him. If this case hadn’t happened he would have been forgotten, probably.”

It doesn’t seem that Ecclestone was intimating that Marussia should be convicted of manslaughter, but he does seem to be arguing that the trial of Pistorius somehow revitalized the runner’s personal brand. And that’s what a team like Marussia would need to do, Ecclestone argues. No one knows who Marussia is, but everyone knows who Ferrari is. Of course, Ecclestone is confusing fame with notoriety, but subtlety has never been his strong suit.